A few weeks ago, critics of Teach for America met in Chicago to look critically at what TFA is doing, to air their complaints, and to shape a different path for the future.
See, TFA recruits very smart, idealistic young people, and they can figure out what is happening and recognize when they are used as pawns.
This post is one of the fruits of that meeting. It is a description of TFA’s leading dissidents. These are TFA graduates who went through the program and began to wonder if they were being used as cannon fodder by an organization that is now part of the corporate-funded privatization agend.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
TFA assigned me to the Baton Rouge Recovery School District where I unwittingly found myself in a circus. I quit this year and I do not regret the decision for a second. My main concerns were rampant administrative careerism, suspect parenting, worthless teacher evaluations, and empty TFA rhetoric.
Principals and assistant principals routinely keep violent and disruptive children in school because they want to keep their suspension rates low. On paper it looks like they have a school under control, but the reality is much different. Administrators don’t care though. They only want to propel themselves into ever more cushy, higher paying jobs.
Many of the parents aren’t much better. I can’t blame them however. Many of the parents graduated from the same schools their children attend. They live in the same terrible neighborhoods fostering morality and values not conducive to academic success. Some parents teach their children that it’s ok to fight in school. They tell them it’s ok to disrespect and disregard the teacher. Calling one of those parents about a child’s behavior is useless. In many cases, the parents are just as ignorant and ill-mannered as their children. In fact, some of the parents want their children to act out. That unscrupulous few want government checks for medication they only give the kids at night when they are with the parents (if they actually buy the medication at all). Trust me, a lot of those parents know their children are rotten. They don’t know what to do with them, so they keep them medicated and/or in front of the television. It only takes about five unruly children to destroy the learning environment. You can bet your life there are at least five in every TFA classroom.
The worst aspect of it though is the push toward teacher accountability. Principals fire teachers year after year to give the appearance they are doing something. Teachers are unreasonably held accountable for student behavior and test scores, as if a teacher can force a student to pay attention, do their class work, do their homework and study. That reality doesn’t matter. Principals just issue more and more edicts for students to remain “engaged.” To do this, principals and learning coaches suggest nothing more than a stage show. New observation protocols require a certain teacher performance rather than actual learning. How can a teacher be “effective” when the majority of the students fail? Just “teach” the way they want you to. You will be deemed “effective.”
TFA plays right along. They constantly tell stories about miracle working teachers. The rub is you never actually meet those miracle workers or see any evidence of their success. It’s just one unverifiable anecdote after the next. YOU are the problem if you can’t do the same.
I did not believe those lies for one second, so I left. The careerism, suspect parenting, punitive “teacher accountability” protocols, and empty rhetoric led me to get out. I could no longer delay law school attendance to be a part of what is essentially a charade. Do yourself a favor and avoid Teach for America.
I think we were colleagues at the same school. Your descriptions were “perfect”. This is exactly what’s happening.
I have some questions about this ex-TFA story.
I imagine that “parenting” issues can be very trying, but the attitude of “Glad to be Gone” troubles me. Who asked you to come? Parents in poor districts–and the Recovery District is poor and disenfranchised to a distressing degree–are disengaged because they are relegated to an impoverished life with few opportunities for economic or social improvement. What used to anchor communities–respectable jobs, local schools with local control, families with ties to the school (including as teachers)–no longer exist. The patronizing attitude of the benevolent and charitably minded TFA recruit is all too obvious in this post.
You might not seen yourself as contributing to the problem, but you are–both in your complacence about the inequality and racism that pervade all of American society and in your smug assurance that you are supposed to be thanked for taking time out of your busy and rewarding life to go teach in the ghetto for 2 years.
By the way, there are plenty of dysfunctional middle- and upper-class parents with–I really wouldn’t say “rotten” because it is so dehumanizing and it tells me a lot about this poster–disrespectful, troubled, addicted children. They can just afford lawyers and tutors, psychiatrists, and meds.
Thank you.
Agree
Let’s keep in mind that is a young person who was recruited and placed in that district. What struck me hard was a great deal of what was described was what really goes on in some schools. Many TFA “teachers” are glad to be gone because they do not desire to be a career teacher.
Ms Dee, TFA are not “recruited”–they apply. It is unfortunate that many do so without understanding what the institution is about.
White Man’s Burden is such a BITCH!
What more does anyone need to see the corporate designs to destroy public education and insert, charter schools that FRONT for a cure, that is, as they say, “Far worse than the problem.” It’s all about, as this gentleman aptly opined, “Money and destroying public education and CRITICAL THINKING in the populace. Therefore WHY is “critical thinking” such a target? Simple reason: to create a docile, dumb and vapid public to “work the mines” of corporate America.
The TFA is like Gordon Gecko masquerading as Laura Ingalls Wilder combined with a Nutria, not a great combination.
Reblogged this on Crazy Crawfish's Blog and commented:
Great refurational piece from the perspective of former TFA members now turned dissidents and students taught by TFA in New Orleans in wake of Katrina. A sad punch to the gut for kids already struggling to stand up in the aftermath of that catastrophe.
Look for more of the same PLUS the raiding of public pensions, destruction of the post office, more “security” measures that in days of yore was simply called what it was and is, INSTALLATION OF A POLICE STATE. IF this newest, “Be afraid, be VERY afraid,” is a harbinger of another “attack,” what Orwellian measures will instantly be put into effect?
I think we need a specific plan for educating parents and community members when TFA arrives.
This idea that parents are demanding people with 5 weeks training to teach their kids is just nonsense. This “gift” is being foisted on us, and worse,.we’re PAYING for it.
I’ll.keep my experienced local teachers, thanks. They know the parents and the siblings and the community, and THEIR kids go to our public schools. Now that’s real “skin in the game”
“Now that’s real “skin in the game””
You got that right!
Good comment.
Educating parents and giving them voice is KEY! Teach for America hides behind a (until now) near-perfect PR veneer, where no one knows to question them-not the public, not the media, and too often not the parents. I believe those in charge of the organization are terrified by the recent string of visible criticsm, and the TFA is poised to be exposed for the sham it has unfortunately become. NO parent would choose an underprepared novice over a professional educator. Let parents know what they are being sold, especially in the charters. Start a movement where parents demand the right to fully-trained, fully-certified teachers. It is an equity issue. ALL kids deserve this right.
TFA is the emperor with no clothes, and it’s time to let the world know they are ethically and professionally naked.